I’ve been in marketing for many years, but I still know the ultimate truth of this statement:
If you can’t close deals, all the marketing in the world won’t help you grow your kitchen business.
Sounds obvious, maybe, but far too many kitchen retailers are so focused on ‘generating leads’ that they forget to consider the number of sales appointments and deals they actually get over the line.
Which – at the end of the day – is the most important thing; without sales, your KBB business dies, quicker than you can imagine.
And that’s why you need to prioritise sales - getting more people to say yes and driving more revenue and profit into your business.
I’ve got two key ideas to share, both of which will hopefully help you up that closing rate when you’re in a sales situation:
1. The one thing that closes more people than ANYTHING else
I was chatting to a client who’s going great guns at the moment – he’s one of the best kitchen salespeople around. His closing rate is through the roof, and he’s absolutely clear on the most powerful thing he can do to get sales over the line:
“Showing our past kitchen projects does more to get people over the line than anything else we do. And, it helps to extract their budget.”
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
You’re not selling 2D and 3D designs, you’re selling spaces for families. The more tangible you can make that space - with photos, videos and case studies of previous successful projects - the more credibility you have. The more appeal there is to what you can do for them, the less friction there’ll be in the way of them signing on the dotted line.
2. Inject urgency with honesty and assertiveness
You don’t need me to tell you that the lead time on appliances right now is through the roof – something like 4-5 months to get them delivered.
Your clients NEED to know that, and it’s a lever you can pull to get them to take action.
The fact is, if they order their appliances at the same time they order their kitchen, they’re guaranteed to be left with holes in their new kitchen where the appliances should be, when it comes to installation.
So, encouraging prospects at the appropriate stage of their kitchen buying journey to “at least get the appliances ordered” is a form of holding deposit on the rest of the kitchen. That’s because it’s highly unlikely they’re going anywhere else for their kitchen cabinetry after that.
No one likes how lead times are affecting the market right now. Still, smart retailers are using the way the wind is blowing to inject urgency, get more ‘deposits’, and secure more kitchens.
I hope these two tactics will help you tighten up that close rate and get more people over the line – if you are looking to supercharge your kitchen sales and marketing and you’d like a conversation, you know where we are.
